.jpg)
Posts
An Early Look at the Best Director Oscar Race
4 hours ago
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Bleak chic
Looking for examples of bleakness in cinema: bleak stories, bleak landscapes, pervasive hopelessness. Films that don't shy away from getting to the redemptionless heart of humanity: gangster pics, post-apocalyptic films, etc. Recent are upcoming examples are welcome, as are ones from the past. Please leave in the comments.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Requiem for a Dream is the first that comes to mind. I had to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium after I saw it to feel good about the world after seeing it the first time.
Believe it or not, there's also a Corman-produced film made in Peru that fits your "bleak" definition: Crime Zone not only is supposed to be a B-flick based on Bonnie and Clyde, but it also features a post-apocalypse. (And I auditioned for it way back when! My ex-girlfriend plays a robotic bank teller! Whee!)
It's All About Love
The Saddest Music in the World
The Passion of the Christ (made more bleak because its intention was to inspire hope and faith)
‘Save the Tiger’. I did extra work in it (my scenes never made the final cut). My friend's did. He's the hitch-hiker. That film makes me cry every time. Not from grief - from the hopelessness of it all. ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ hit me the same way - only Jack Lemmon's character hit me harder in the gut. Don't know why. I was a high school kid pretending to be in my 20's and getting away with it. I inhabited the edges of Hollywood life - not really part of, not really; but hanging out with the notably notorious and convincing myself I belonged. Life should have rocked - but it didn't. I lived amongst the ‘almost’s’ – as in ‘it shoulda been’. So ‘Save the Tiger’ absolutely killed me dead.
Old Boy
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Happiness
NIGHT MOVES (1975) Hackman. Penn. Leaves you with an empty hollow feeling. sigh.
The Third Man
The Godfather
The Bicycle Thieves
On the Beach
Conspiracy (with Branaugh as a Nazi)
Make Way for Tomorrow
Dead End
Post a Comment